Þorri and Þorrablót

Today is Bóndadagur, “husband’s day”, in Iceland. It is the day when you suppose to spoil your partner with small gestures of appreciation. Since I completely forgot about this, all the spoilage shrinked to leaving my husband peacefully playing computer. Konurdagur, “wife’s day” will be coming up at the end of February.

This day also starts the month of Þorri. It gotit's name from the thunder – god Þór (Thor) and is celebrated with the feast called Þorrablót. Since the celebration took place in the coldest month of the year, all the food appearing at the table was preserved in various ways: by drying or putrefying, salting, smoking or pickling in whey.




And though there isn’t a necessity of eating such food anymore, the Icelanders keep the tradition and old-fashioned delicatessens appeared on the shelves of the stores and are served in the restaurants during this month. What consider to be an irreplaceable part of traditional Þorrablót includes hákarl, the famous putrefied shark, burried for several weeks in the ground before being dug back and considered good to eat; svið, burnt and smoked head of the sheep; blóðmőr- sausage of sheep stomach filled with rye and sheep’s blood; lundabaggi – roll of sheep’s fat and belly muscles; lifrapylsa – liver sausage and so on and so far.

My absolute favourite, in a way of translation (I am still building up my courage to try any of this) is Hrútspungar – “candies between the legs”, in more prosaic way - a ram’s scrotum with testicles.

Are you hungry yet?